Homing Pigeon

One of the single most useful creature mods, the homing pigeon won't be carrying your tribe into battle or even scouting out locations -- but it does provide a much-needed service.

This mod lets you place flags as locations, then equip the homing pigeon leg ring on any of your flying beasts. You can manually recall any flyers to the flag, or when you die, your "pigeon" will automatically return to the flag location.

No more losing your dumb flyers who get eaten while randomly wandering around! The tribe log is also updated when the flyer is recalled, letting your tribe know what happened so everyone is well informed of player activity.

Classic Flyers

Considering this "early access" game is now up to version 263, it goes without saying that there have been more than a few changes to creatures and stats since Ark was first released.

Not everyone has been crazy about all of those changes, most notably in how certain flying dinos were nerfed in various updates. With the Classic Flyers mod, original stats are returned to the Argent, Moth, Pelas, Ptero, Quetz, Tapejara, and Wyvern -- in addition to returning the ability to level up the speed stat.

The World Turtle

Yep, its what you think it is -- the Discworld turtle that holds up the world arrives in Ark! As expected, he's massive in the extreme. And yes, you can tame, saddle, and ride him. Heck, you can pretty much have your whole tribe and entire settlement ride him...

Jurassic Park Expansion

15 new dinos and creatures are added with this mod, all modeled after dinosaurs from the Jurassic Park franchise... and featuring their JP sound effects as well!

Remember the Spinasaurus from Jurassic Park 3, or that goo-spitting Dilophosaurus from the original movie? Yep, they're both there, as is the poor goat that gets eaten by the T-Rex.

Now just build some pens that will inevitably fail and invite your friends and family to come gawk at your tamed dinos. I'm sure nothing at all will go wrong, and it certainly won't go wrong four separate movies in a row!

Manticore X

Lately we have been getting more mythical beasts in updates, expansions, and official mods -- but there's always more room for magical creatures in Ark's vast landscapes.

While Scorched Earth gave us the hard-to-acquire wyverns, this fan mod adds in the legendary Manticore, which is tamed in a similar way by stealing an egg and then pacifying a female of the species to acquire milk.

Another flying beast is always a welcome addition. And as you can see by the size comparison to some golems, these bad buys get big!

Small Dragons

Sadly this mod now has more than a few kinks in it since the 260 update, which will hopefully be resolved before too long. The basics still work, but there are some serious problems with animations and spawning.

What you get are smaller versions of that epic (and frustratingly hard) dragon boss, including the ability to tame, saddle, armor, and of course ride each randomly spawning dragon. Your whole tribe can eventually soar through the skies on a flight of colorful dragons!

Rainbow Unicorn

Friendship is survival! Add a little Rainbow Dash into your Ark experience with this hilarious mod that creates colorful unicorns covered in glitter who spawn wherever Equus are normally found.

Everything gets rainbow-ized, and I mean everything -- from tri-colored unicorn poop to a very fabulous roar attack. Just don't be surprised if your tribe members give you some side eye when you roll on up on your purple unicorn. It's the perfect mod for all you bronies out there.

Aliens Vs. Predator

It took me a little while to get on board with this one, but now it totally makes sense. I mean, the predators have whole worlds devoted to hunting various dangerous creatures, so it could make sense for Ark to just be one of their hunt playgrounds.

Of course wandering xenos spawn across the map with this mod -- but that's just the tip of the iceberg, since it lets you play as a predator and adds in classic predator abilities like thermal vision.

That wraps up our list! If you want to find a server running a particular mod rather than setting it up in your own game, you can get a huge list of all servers with different settings over on ArkFinder.

What did you think of our list of the best dino mods currently available for Ark: Survival Evolved? Let us know if you downloaded any of these, and be sure to leave a comment with your favorite dino mod we might have missed!

If you still need ever more mods for this massive survival arena game, check out the rest of our ARK mod roundups:

Ty splits his time between writing horror fiction and writing about video games&period; After 25 years of gaming&comma; Ty can firmly say that gaming peaked with Planescape Torment&comma; but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a soft spot for games like Baldur's Gate&comma; Fallout&colon; New Vegas&comma; Bioshock Infinite&comma; and Horizon&colon; Zero Dawn&period; He has previously written for GamerU and MetalUnderground&period; He also writes for PortalMonkey covering gaming laptops and peripherals&period;